Yes we are, Noel, but not a very active one. There have been two in the 19 years we've been here. One did quite a bit of damage to the older buildings in downtown Seattle - a lot of which are brick and mortar construction, but the second one was very mild. Eileen was driving home from downtown and wasn't even aware of it. I was at work at Boeing - Everett, 60 miles closer to the epicenter, and the plant was closed about 30 minutes after the quake and we got the afternoon off.

You can tell visually that the area has the potential, as there are four "dormant" volcanoes within 150 miles. Mount Rainier is the biggest one at over 14,000 ft high. Mount Baker, about 50 miles NE of us, is close to 9000 ft. Mount St. Helens, about 120 miles away erupted at the time of the above one.

I think the earthquake potential is the reason for most houses being wooden construction - more flexible and less likely to collapse.

Crikey never realised that. We could be about to have our own tremors shortly Frank, at least in the Blackpool area. Fracking is about to start after the government overruled the council who had refused permission. The Wells have been drllled and the fracking tubes in place last time fracking occurred in The area a few years ago it created tremors in the area and was stopped